The analysis in this book disputes entrenched interpretations of the comparative political economy of industrialized democracies. It questions, in particular, the widely-held assumption that social ...
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The analysis in this book disputes entrenched interpretations of the comparative political economy of industrialized democracies. It questions, in particular, the widely-held assumption that social democratic governments will defend the interests of labour. The evidence shows that labour has become split into two clearly differentiated constituencies: those with secure employment (insiders) and those without (outsiders). The book focuses on three policy areas: employment protection (representing the main concern of insiders), and active and passive labour market policies (the main concern of outsiders). The main thrust of the argument is that the goals of social democratic parties are often best served by pursuing policies that benefit only insiders. The implication of the book's insider-outsider model is that social democratic government is associated with higher levels of employment protection legislation but not with labour market policy. The book also argues that there are factors that can reduce insider-outsider differences and weaken their influence on social democratic governments. These hypotheses are explored through the triangulation of different methodologies. The book provides an analysis of surveys and macrodata and a detailed comparison of three case-studies: Spain, the UK, and the Netherlands.Less

David Rueda

Published in print: 2007-10-01

The analysis in this book disputes entrenched interpretations of the comparative political economy of industrialized democracies. It questions, in particular, the widely-held assumption that social democratic governments will defend the interests of labour. The evidence shows that labour has become split into two clearly differentiated constituencies: those with secure employment (insiders) and those without (outsiders). The book focuses on three policy areas: employment protection (representing the main concern of insiders), and active and passive labour market policies (the main concern of outsiders). The main thrust of the argument is that the goals of social democratic parties are often best served by pursuing policies that benefit only insiders. The implication of the book's insider-outsider model is that social democratic government is associated with higher levels of employment protection legislation but not with labour market policy. The book also argues that there are factors that can reduce insider-outsider differences and weaken their influence on social democratic governments. These hypotheses are explored through the triangulation of different methodologies. The book provides an analysis of surveys and macrodata and a detailed comparison of three case-studies: Spain, the UK, and the Netherlands.

In recent decades, the share of service employment has increased greatly across Europe, fundamentally changing the structure of European labour markets and the nature of the economic risks that ...
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In recent decades, the share of service employment has increased greatly across Europe, fundamentally changing the structure of European labour markets and the nature of the economic risks that individual workers face. This book explores how far reforms to unemployment protection systems, which were introduced and consolidated in a very different labour market context, are responding to the particular challenges of post-industrial labour markets. It argues that adapting traditional systems of unemployment protection to the risk profiles of service-based economies requires a profound policy realignment, which can be summarized with reference to three overlapping processes of institutional change; the homogenization of unemployment benefit rights for different categories of the unemployed; the erosion of the institutional boundaries between benefit provisions for the unemployed and for other groups of working-age people reliant on state support; and the ever-closer operational integration of income maintenance policies and other forms of labour market support. Systematically comparing across twelve European welfare states over a period of twenty years, the book traces how these reform dynamics have played out in the context of political conflicts, institutional constraints, and changing macroeconomic conditions. While the book highlights that many differences continue to set the unemployment protection arrangements of different European countries apart, it also points to an emergent process of contingent convergence in conceptions of the risk of unemployment and of appropriate ways of regulating it.Less

Regulating the Risk of Unemployment : National Adaptations to Post-Industrial Labour Markets in Europe

Published in print: 2011-10-01

In recent decades, the share of service employment has increased greatly across Europe, fundamentally changing the structure of European labour markets and the nature of the economic risks that individual workers face. This book explores how far reforms to unemployment protection systems, which were introduced and consolidated in a very different labour market context, are responding to the particular challenges of post-industrial labour markets. It argues that adapting traditional systems of unemployment protection to the risk profiles of service-based economies requires a profound policy realignment, which can be summarized with reference to three overlapping processes of institutional change; the homogenization of unemployment benefit rights for different categories of the unemployed; the erosion of the institutional boundaries between benefit provisions for the unemployed and for other groups of working-age people reliant on state support; and the ever-closer operational integration of income maintenance policies and other forms of labour market support. Systematically comparing across twelve European welfare states over a period of twenty years, the book traces how these reform dynamics have played out in the context of political conflicts, institutional constraints, and changing macroeconomic conditions. While the book highlights that many differences continue to set the unemployment protection arrangements of different European countries apart, it also points to an emergent process of contingent convergence in conceptions of the risk of unemployment and of appropriate ways of regulating it.

This book examines the way in which the prospect of a wartime German assault on British seaborne commerce influenced the development of British naval policy in the run up to the First World War. It ...
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This book examines the way in which the prospect of a wartime German assault on British seaborne commerce influenced the development of British naval policy in the run up to the First World War. It argues that, owing to the Admiralty’s consistently expressed fears that, in the event of an Anglo-German conflict, German commerce-raiders could interdict vital supplies, the British government began to consider German maritime power as a serious danger to British national security at the very outset of the twentieth century and that this sense of anxiety continued, even sharpened, as the years unfolded. It further argues that as a result of this perception of a growing menace, the Royal Navy devoted considerable time and energy to devising ever more elaborate countermeasures. These included developing new types of auxiliary and then regular warships, attempting to change international maritime law, creating a new global intelligence network, seeking to involve the government in the maritime insurance system and, finally, arming British merchant vessels and taking steps to place trained gun crews on these vessels in peacetime. While some of these developments have been subject to alternative explanations, some have never been explained at all. Yet, as this book shows, all had their origins, substantially or even entirely, in the Admiralty’s fears of a German threat to British maritime commerce. As a result, it concludes that the prospect of a German assault on British trade played a major part in shaping Admiralty policy in the twelve years before 1914.Less

The Royal Navy and the German Threat, 1901-1914 : Admiralty Plans to Protect British Trade in a War Against Germany

Matthew S. Seligmann

Published in print: 2012-05-24

This book examines the way in which the prospect of a wartime German assault on British seaborne commerce influenced the development of British naval policy in the run up to the First World War. It argues that, owing to the Admiralty’s consistently expressed fears that, in the event of an Anglo-German conflict, German commerce-raiders could interdict vital supplies, the British government began to consider German maritime power as a serious danger to British national security at the very outset of the twentieth century and that this sense of anxiety continued, even sharpened, as the years unfolded. It further argues that as a result of this perception of a growing menace, the Royal Navy devoted considerable time and energy to devising ever more elaborate countermeasures. These included developing new types of auxiliary and then regular warships, attempting to change international maritime law, creating a new global intelligence network, seeking to involve the government in the maritime insurance system and, finally, arming British merchant vessels and taking steps to place trained gun crews on these vessels in peacetime. While some of these developments have been subject to alternative explanations, some have never been explained at all. Yet, as this book shows, all had their origins, substantially or even entirely, in the Admiralty’s fears of a German threat to British maritime commerce. As a result, it concludes that the prospect of a German assault on British trade played a major part in shaping Admiralty policy in the twelve years before 1914.

Nowhere are the difficulties of protecting both the right to enjoy one’s culture and the right to sexual equality protections better illuminated than in the case of post-Apartheid South Africa. This ...
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Nowhere are the difficulties of protecting both the right to enjoy one’s culture and the right to sexual equality protections better illuminated than in the case of post-Apartheid South Africa. This chapter discusses efforts to reconcile constitutional recognition of African customary law (and to a lesser extent Muslim personal law) with formal protections for women’s sexual equality. It also presents the debate and consultations over the reform of African customary marriage (in the late 1990s in South Africa) as a good example of open-ended democratic deliberation grounded in principles of democratic legitimacy and political inclusion. It is this kind of model of deliberation that offers up the best solution to conflicts of culture, including those over gender roles, in socially plural, liberal constitutional democracies.Less

Gender and Cultural Justice in South Africa

Monique Deveaux

Published in print: 2006-11-30

Nowhere are the difficulties of protecting both the right to enjoy one’s culture and the right to sexual equality protections better illuminated than in the case of post-Apartheid South Africa. This chapter discusses efforts to reconcile constitutional recognition of African customary law (and to a lesser extent Muslim personal law) with formal protections for women’s sexual equality. It also presents the debate and consultations over the reform of African customary marriage (in the late 1990s in South Africa) as a good example of open-ended democratic deliberation grounded in principles of democratic legitimacy and political inclusion. It is this kind of model of deliberation that offers up the best solution to conflicts of culture, including those over gender roles, in socially plural, liberal constitutional democracies.

Chapters 1 and 2 point to the fact that the demand for protection that accompanies the spread of market transactions is met by the Russian state only in part: a significant sector of the business ...
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Chapters 1 and 2 point to the fact that the demand for protection that accompanies the spread of market transactions is met by the Russian state only in part: a significant sector of the business world does not use state-supplied protection services. A demand for alternative sources of protection is then expected to arise. Some authors, especially economists, have been quick to conclude that, since the state does not provide a service, the market inevitably will. It cannot, however, be argued that demand will inevitably be met; a supply of people trained in the use of violence and easily available weapons must also be present. This chapter focuses on the availability of people trained in the use of violence and of weapons, and the varieties of private protectors available in Russia at the time of the transition to the market, ranging from segments of the state apparatus (privately sold state protection), to private security (protection) firms, the internalized protection systems of major economic conglomerates, and criminal groups (banditskaya krysha: krysha, literally ‘roof’, is Russian slang for protection).Less

Varieties of Protectors

Federico Varese

Published in print: 2001-08-02

Chapters 1 and 2 point to the fact that the demand for protection that accompanies the spread of market transactions is met by the Russian state only in part: a significant sector of the business world does not use state-supplied protection services. A demand for alternative sources of protection is then expected to arise. Some authors, especially economists, have been quick to conclude that, since the state does not provide a service, the market inevitably will. It cannot, however, be argued that demand will inevitably be met; a supply of people trained in the use of violence and easily available weapons must also be present. This chapter focuses on the availability of people trained in the use of violence and of weapons, and the varieties of private protectors available in Russia at the time of the transition to the market, ranging from segments of the state apparatus (privately sold state protection), to private security (protection) firms, the internalized protection systems of major economic conglomerates, and criminal groups (banditskaya krysha: krysha, literally ‘roof’, is Russian slang for protection).

A variety of actors operate in the market for protection in Russia, and in order to establish how they interact with each other and with their clients/victims, this chapter and the next present an ...
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A variety of actors operate in the market for protection in Russia, and in order to establish how they interact with each other and with their clients/victims, this chapter and the next present an in-depth study of a particular Russian setting: the city of Perm, in the Ural region. Chapter 4 starts with a brief sketch of Perm’s history and traces the impact of market reforms on the structure of the city economy; further information on Perm is presented in Appendix B. This gives a sociological profile of those who benefited most from the transition to market in Perm, in particular the destination of the former Soviet elite, and shows that members of the former nomenklatura (a detailed list of posts in the Communist Party, Government, or elsewhere, to which individuals may not be appointed without personal interview and prior Party approval) entered the new economic elite. Based mostly on evidence from interviews carried out in 1994–95, and between 1996 and 1999, the chapter then traces the sources of harassment that small kiosk owners and businessmen are exposed to, and their search for effective protection, including their encounters with bogus and predatory ‘krysha’ (literally ‘roofs’ – the Russian slang for protection). Although this discussion is mostly devoted to criminal protectors, the market for protection proved to be populated not only by criminals: fragments of the state apparatus and private protection firms were also significant players.Less

Searching for Protection

Federico Varese

Published in print: 2001-08-02

A variety of actors operate in the market for protection in Russia, and in order to establish how they interact with each other and with their clients/victims, this chapter and the next present an in-depth study of a particular Russian setting: the city of Perm, in the Ural region. Chapter 4 starts with a brief sketch of Perm’s history and traces the impact of market reforms on the structure of the city economy; further information on Perm is presented in Appendix B. This gives a sociological profile of those who benefited most from the transition to market in Perm, in particular the destination of the former Soviet elite, and shows that members of the former nomenklatura (a detailed list of posts in the Communist Party, Government, or elsewhere, to which individuals may not be appointed without personal interview and prior Party approval) entered the new economic elite. Based mostly on evidence from interviews carried out in 1994–95, and between 1996 and 1999, the chapter then traces the sources of harassment that small kiosk owners and businessmen are exposed to, and their search for effective protection, including their encounters with bogus and predatory ‘krysha’ (literally ‘roofs’ – the Russian slang for protection). Although this discussion is mostly devoted to criminal protectors, the market for protection proved to be populated not only by criminals: fragments of the state apparatus and private protection firms were also significant players.

A variety of actors operate in the market for protection in Russia, and in order to establish how they interact with each other and with their clients/victims, Chs 4 and 5 present an in-depth study ...
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A variety of actors operate in the market for protection in Russia, and in order to establish how they interact with each other and with their clients/victims, Chs 4 and 5 present an in-depth study of a particular Russian setting: the city of Perm, in the Ural region. Having established the need for protection and investigated the sources of protection in Ch. 4, Ch. 5 looks at protection contracts and the services that criminal protectors are able to offer. It offers a glimpse of who is more likely to escape the grips of criminal protection and obtain state protection. The data used are based mostly on evidence from interviews with (among others) small kiosk owners, businessmen, and private individuals that were carried out in 1994–95, and between 1996 and 1999.Less

The Contract and the Services

Federico Varese

Published in print: 2001-08-02

A variety of actors operate in the market for protection in Russia, and in order to establish how they interact with each other and with their clients/victims, Chs 4 and 5 present an in-depth study of a particular Russian setting: the city of Perm, in the Ural region. Having established the need for protection and investigated the sources of protection in Ch. 4, Ch. 5 looks at protection contracts and the services that criminal protectors are able to offer. It offers a glimpse of who is more likely to escape the grips of criminal protection and obtain state protection. The data used are based mostly on evidence from interviews with (among others) small kiosk owners, businessmen, and private individuals that were carried out in 1994–95, and between 1996 and 1999.

Expounds the normative theory of trade policy and sets out a framework for analysing trade and other intervention policies in the presence of domestic distortions. It includes discussion of static ...
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Expounds the normative theory of trade policy and sets out a framework for analysing trade and other intervention policies in the presence of domestic distortions. It includes discussion of static and dynamic arguments for protection, especially the infant industry argument, effects of trade policy on income distribution, monopoly, X‐efficiency, foreign investment, and capital accumulation, and the choice between tariffs and subsidies as methods of protection. Chapters especially written for the second edition cover the environment and trade policy, strategic trade policy, and the relationship between trade policy and the exchange rate. The book contains many diagrams and very little mathematics.Less

Trade Policy and Economic Welfare

W. Max. Corden

Published in print: 1997-02-20

Expounds the normative theory of trade policy and sets out a framework for analysing trade and other intervention policies in the presence of domestic distortions. It includes discussion of static and dynamic arguments for protection, especially the infant industry argument, effects of trade policy on income distribution, monopoly, X‐efficiency, foreign investment, and capital accumulation, and the choice between tariffs and subsidies as methods of protection. Chapters especially written for the second edition cover the environment and trade policy, strategic trade policy, and the relationship between trade policy and the exchange rate. The book contains many diagrams and very little mathematics.

Most economists think that unemployment is high in Europe because of rigid labour market institutions such as minimum wages, unemployment benefits, and employment protection. The book develops a ...
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Most economists think that unemployment is high in Europe because of rigid labour market institutions such as minimum wages, unemployment benefits, and employment protection. The book develops a theory of labour market institutions as the outcome of the political process. A central hypothesis is that they will be chiefly determined by the interests of employed workers with intermediate skill levels. We show that redistributive conflict between these workers and more skilled workers may lead to an outcome where a set of rigid institutions arise. We analyse why reform may be difficult because of status‐quo bias, and discuss how it may nevertheless be implemented by choosing an appropriate design or timing for the reform.Less

The Political Economy of Labour Market Institutions

Gilles Saint-Paul

Published in print: 2000-09-28

Most economists think that unemployment is high in Europe because of rigid labour market institutions such as minimum wages, unemployment benefits, and employment protection. The book develops a theory of labour market institutions as the outcome of the political process. A central hypothesis is that they will be chiefly determined by the interests of employed workers with intermediate skill levels. We show that redistributive conflict between these workers and more skilled workers may lead to an outcome where a set of rigid institutions arise. We analyse why reform may be difficult because of status‐quo bias, and discuss how it may nevertheless be implemented by choosing an appropriate design or timing for the reform.

In the last six decades, one of the most striking developments in international law is the emergence of a massive body of legal norms and procedures aimed at protecting human rights. In many ...
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In the last six decades, one of the most striking developments in international law is the emergence of a massive body of legal norms and procedures aimed at protecting human rights. In many countries, though, there is little relationship between international law and the actual protection of human rights on the ground. This book takes a fresh look at why it's been so hard for international law to have much impact in parts of the world where human rights are most at risk. The book argues that more progress is possible if human rights promoters work strategically with the group of states that have dedicated resources to human rights protection. These human rights “stewards” can focus their resources on places where the tangible benefits to human rights are greatest. Success will require setting priorities as well as engaging local stakeholders such as nongovernmental organizations and national human rights institutions. To date, promoters of international human rights law have relied too heavily on setting universal goals and procedures and not enough on assessing what actually works and setting priorities. This book illustrates how, with a different strategy, human rights stewards can make international law more effective and also safeguard human rights for more of the world population.Less

Making Human Rights a Reality

Emilie M. Hafner-Burton

Published in print: 2013-03-24

In the last six decades, one of the most striking developments in international law is the emergence of a massive body of legal norms and procedures aimed at protecting human rights. In many countries, though, there is little relationship between international law and the actual protection of human rights on the ground. This book takes a fresh look at why it's been so hard for international law to have much impact in parts of the world where human rights are most at risk. The book argues that more progress is possible if human rights promoters work strategically with the group of states that have dedicated resources to human rights protection. These human rights “stewards” can focus their resources on places where the tangible benefits to human rights are greatest. Success will require setting priorities as well as engaging local stakeholders such as nongovernmental organizations and national human rights institutions. To date, promoters of international human rights law have relied too heavily on setting universal goals and procedures and not enough on assessing what actually works and setting priorities. This book illustrates how, with a different strategy, human rights stewards can make international law more effective and also safeguard human rights for more of the world population.